Archive for Queensland (QLD)

Being my birthday this week and all I couldn’t stop myself from taking yet another trip down the famous memory lane. Two year’s ago my birthday was spent on a sailboat outside Airlie Beach around the Whitsunday Islands in Queensland. I must say I’ve had worse birthdays.

This year’s Dirt & Dust Festival takes place in Julia Creek in the Australian Outback this weekend. It’s a festival about bulls, bikes and butts apparently.

It all started back in 1994 when a couple of locals tried to come up with ideas on how to put Julia Creek on the map. And in one of Queensland’s hottest and harshest climates the idea was born to run a triathlon!

The triathlon continues to grow both in numbers and esteem. It’s not easy – but then nothing is in this part of Australia, that’s the challenge! There is however something for everyone else that doesn’t run, ride or swim. The festival has also over the years offered magicians, country music talent quests, amateur boxing, dance groups, cultural performers, fireworks displays, tobacco rolling contests, local iron man/woman contests, sanctioned Bull rides and the list goes on. Read more

Related Images:

I read today that on March 27 a toad killing spree took place in Queensland where 14 000 toads were eliminated on the third annual Toad Day Out. Cane toads are native to South and Central America and they became pests after being introduced into Australia to control destructive beetles in Queensland’s sugar cane crops back in 1935. Cane toads are capable of poisoning predators that try to eat them and they continue to spread across Australia, moving westward at an estimated 40 to 60 km per year. The number of cane toads across Australia is estimated at more than 200 million. Read more

Cyclone Yasi’s path of destruction(red arrow) compared to Cyclone Larry back in 2006, a cyclone that caused major destruction.

Powerlines and trees are down and houses are damaged but luckily no-one has been reported killed or seriously injured and it doesn’t seem like the cyclone was quite as devastating as many feared. Cyclone Yasi is the first tropical cyclone since 1918 to to strike land with the maximum intensity of category 5. The cyclone crossed the coast at about midnight on Wednesday, local time, near Mission Beach, (138 km south of Cairns, 1500 km north of Brisbane) and battered an area of coastline extending as far south as Ayr, 320km away. In addition to the strongest winds ever registered in Australia (285 km/h equal to 79 m/s), record-high waves of up to 9 meters were recorded off Townsville.

Status last night (Swedish time) – downgraded to a category 3

Today small farming towns, hundreds of kilometres from the sea, were experiencing wind gusts of up to 90 km/h (25 m/s) as Cyclone Yasi moved inland.

Cyclone Yasi damaged boats worth millions of dollars when it slammed into the Port Hinchinbrook Marina at Cardwell.

No, not the bananas!

The National Farmers Federation reports that in repeat of Cyclone Larry at least 85% of the $200 million banana industry is gone. Cyclone Yasi destroyed all the banana plants in the major growing regions of Tully and Innisfail, which supply more than three-quarters of the nation’s bananas. The banana production is not estimated to return to normal levels for another 12 to 18 months. The damage could heighten pressure to allow foreign banana imports, which are opposed by farmers who are anxious to keep their industry disease-free. Many consumers stopped buying the fruit altogether after Cyclone Larry pushed prices above $3 a banana and it’s not unlikely that the same will happen again. The sugar industry is also counting the cost of the disaster, with suggestions crop losses of up to half a billion dollars.

As if Queensland haven’t experienced enough lately. Now the Queenslanders are preparing for what could be one of the state’s biggest tropical cyclones ever, expected to hit later this week. The storm, 500 km wide with a giant 100 km eye, and ferocious winds is tipped to cross the coast either on Wednesday night or Thursday morning. The smaller category two cyclone Anthony that hit just the other day weakened into a low pressure system after crossing land, causing only minor damages. There is no such luck with the approaching Yasi, which like January’s devastating floods most likely will be a state event. It’s going to affect a much larger area than ex-cyclone Anthony both with rainfall and wind and because of its size and strength, it’s likely to persist as a cyclone even after it crosses land.

Read in the press:Residents in communities from Mackay to Innisfail are on alert for Cyclone Yasi, a huge system that is anticipated to become a category four cyclone, and could be more powerful than 2005’s Cyclone Larry. Forecasters said Cyclone Yasi could be generating gales of more than 250km/h (or 69 m/s) when it hits the coast on Wednesday or Thursday, which would put it on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005.

The forecast path shown above is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s best estimate of the cyclone’s future movement and intensity.

Queensland, which accounts for about a fifth of Australia’s economy and 90% of its exports of steel-making coal, has borne the brunt of a cruel summer, with floods having swept across the eastern seaboard in the past month, killing at least 35 people. Queensland is also home to Australia’s sugar industry, which was also hurt by the floods and now risks being battered by the cyclone.

The rains predicted to accompany the system could dump up to one metre into the already sodden river catchments of central Queensland, where people have only recently cleaned up from the floods in December and January. The floods that swamped around 30,000 homes, destroyed roads and rail lines and crippled Queensland’s coal industry, with up to 15 million tonnes of exports estimated to have been delayed into the second half of this year. Queensland’s coal mines are mostly well inland and unlikely to be smashed by Cyclone Yasi, but they could be drenched again by heavy rain. The mines are still struggling to pump water out of their pits.

about the blog

A Swede and an Australian blogging together gives you a Swaussie blog.

We met in Australia 2009 and we choose to share our life and adventures with you in this blog. We had a long distance relationship between Sweden & Australia for 10 months. Between August 2010 and July 2012 we lived together in Sweden and now we're back living in Melbourne.

In the blog we mix blog posts in English and Swedish, share with you what it's like to move and live in another country than your home country, the culture shocks we experience, the differences we encounter between Sweden and Australia and much, much more.

Feel free to leave a comment to let us know you were here and don't hesitate to ask us questions about Australia and/or Sweden!